I Only Date Superheroes?
by Mischief's Angel
Summary: Cara is a fairly normal artist living in New York. The world has had superheroes for a while now, thanks to the Avengers. Cara doesn't particularly care for the masked "Heroes". That is, until she finds that her "perfect" boyfriend is really one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best assets. T for violence later on.
1. Chapter 1

Cara had a fairly normal life aside from living in an old, shut down fire-station. She had bought the place from a friend of her dad's long ago. Her life was pretty simple: get through college, become an artist, and settle down with Mr. Right. She was already an artist by profession. She did paintings and artwork of the cities most accomplished people…super heroes. In New York, there always seemed to be super heroes saving the day. Whether it was the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, or the legendary Avengers, there always seemed to be a new heroic deed displayed on the news. On TV was the closest Cara ever wanted to get to all the hectic dangers of a Super Hero and his or her job.

She finished her latest painting and set the brush aside. The painting was a heroic portrait of Captain America that a friend of hers had already bought. She sighed contently and stood back to look at it. Very seldom did she like her own work, but occasionally she did a piece that she liked very much.  
"Cara!" called a voice from downstairs.  
She walked over to the old fireman's pole, that she still used when running late, and looked down. At the bottom was Cara's friend Jamie with a large smile on her face.  
"Come on up!" Cara called down, going to meet her friend at the spiraled, metal stairwell that led up to where she was. Jamie eagerly bolted up the steps.  
"Turn on your TV!" Jamie demanded.  
They both walked over and crashed on Cara's couch. Cara grabbed the remote and turned on the local news channel. The news chopper showed live feed from New York City. The video was of Iron Man and Thor taking down a giant killer robot. Everyone on the street cheered.  
"Seen it all before, Jamie," Cara sighed.  
"It doesn't make it any less amazing!" Jamie argued.  
"Yes, it does," Cara stated flipping off the TV.  
She stood and walked over the painting that she had finished.  
"It gets old," she sighed, "These heroes defeat the villains that conveniently show up and then bask in the glory of the media. It's rigged, it's tacky, it's boring!"  
Having heard this depressing speech before, Jamie checked her watch.  
"I have to go," Jamie sighed, "My shift starts in a few minutes."  
"Bye," Cara waved, as Jamie walked back down the stairs.

Cara spent the next few hours regretting her decision to be so pessimistic about Jamie's favorite news stories. She was going to call Jamie, but figured that she would be at work. She looked at her phone, before she heard the fire station's doorbell ring. She pressed a button by the stairwell that opened the station's side door.  
"Hey!" she called over happily, as she saw her boyfriend walk to the bottom of the stairwell. He simply looked up and smiled.  
"Hey, PoohBear," he smiled, before he walked up the stairwell.  
He was wearing his favorite, sleeveless purple shirt and old jeans, as he usually did. He never seemed to run out of purple and black shirts, but Cara liked the colors so she wasn't complaining. He also never seemed to run out of military style boots, but he pulled off the overall look and Cara could never talk him in to wearing much else.  
"So?" he asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.  
"What?" she laughed, noticing that he was just smiling at her.  
"You forgot again didn't you?" he laughed.  
"Forgot what?" Cara asked slowly, not really wanting to hear the answer.  
"It's Thursday," he stated, "We've gone to the movies every almost every Thursday for, oh, only six months or so."  
"Oh, gosh," Cara said, becoming aware of how long she had been cooped up in her house, "I totally spaced."  
"Correction. You 'spaced'…again," her boyfriend sighed.  
"Well, there's still time," Cara said positively, "What movie did you wanna go see?"  
"I heard that the fourth Mission Impossible movie was good."  
"Umm….sure," Cara agreed.  
Movies about missions and government agencies had never really been Cara's favorite, but she knew how much her boyfriend loved them, so she was learning to deal with them. She was surprised at the good number of them that she actually liked. She was still grateful that she was able to talk him out of taking her to see Inception, because she claimed that she would rather smack her head into a brick wall for two and a half hours.  
"Come on, I'll drive," he said, taking Cara's hand and urging her to the door. He was always really eager to go out and see a new movie. Cara thought he resembled a little boy on Christmas. It was a cute side of him that she loved to see. She followed him out and, to her relief, he hadn't driven his motorcycle. He loved his bike, but Cara generally refused to ride it. Instead he had his car, which she really loved. It was a sporty looking black mustang and he always walked around the car and opened the passenger door for her.

They reached the movie theater and, whether she tried or not, Cara didn't touch one door. Clint was always really sweet when it came to opening doors for her and really serious when it came to paying for…everything! Cara had tried to pay for dinner once, but it turned into the only argument that the two had been serious about. Since then, she learned to back off of the check. They found great seats in the theater (the same seats that they got every week) and Clint left to go and get Cara the snack that she never once asked for, but still got every week. The first time the two had gone to see a movie seemed forever ago. Clint had tried the fake yawn trick that guys used as an excuse to put their arm around their dates, but Cara didn't fall for it. At this point though, he just blatantly put his arm around her shoulders. It didn't bother Cara in the slightest. He sat next to her, giving her Twizzlers and a soda (which she was slowly becoming addicted to), and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. The movie started, but Cara zoned out a short while into it.

She sat thinking about when she met the "World's Best Boyfriend" (as she always called him sweetly). She had quite literally run into him one day. She was late for work (she had only just started working that new job) and she was running down a busy sidewalk to try to get there on time. Clint had been literally running the other way, looking really late for something. Between the running to get somewhere and the two not paying attention, both found themselves sitting on the pavement wondering what had just happened. Clint desperately tried to find words to apologize or say something, but he sat there stuttering words that never had a sound. Cara had just started laughing, with no idea why it way funny. They'd been great friends since then. They did have the boyfriend and girlfriend titles, but their time together was nothing more than just two friends hanging out all the time (and one of the friends refusing to let the other pay for anything!). The only problem that the two had ever faced was that of Cara's best friends being…"less than ecstatic" of her dating Clint. She could never figure out why, but they always seemed suspicious of his behavior. He had always been perfectly sweet to Cara, but he was very cold and distant from other people, particularly Cara's friends. It was almost as if he didn't trust them to be close to her. He had this very protective attitude about her. It just seemed natural to him to protect someone close, no matter what. Cara always guessed that his strong sense of loyalty was why he was distant from people that weren't close to him. He reminded her of a German Sheppard; handsome, loyal, protective, and really skeptical of anything strange. He generally had a very serious face, which went the intense blue of his eyes, but Cara was always happy to see him smiling rather than the flat expression that he had. She was convinced that he didn't smile enough and was always determined to change that. At first he had always had that weird sense where one always feels like looking back over their shoulder, but Cara had softened him up over a few years and was happy to see that he relaxed much more now. Not much else about him changed. His personality was always consistent, as was his love for black and dark purple. His hair hadn't changed since she met him. He had short, dirty blond hair that he spiked up in the front. Cara always liked the way it look and was glad that he didn't ever change it. It had been slightly longer at one point, but Clint never liked it that way.  
"Babe?" Clint's voice broke her thoughts.  
"Yeah," she said quietly, remembering that they were still in a theater.  
"The movie's over," he pointed out, "Been over for like ten minutes."  
"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking."  
"Oh…that's never good."  
"Hey! I happen to think a lot!" she laughed.  
"Maybe too much," Clint laughed, "Come on I'll buy you dinner."  
"I can buy dinner tonight," Cara asked, wondering what he would do.  
"I got it," he said, not worrying about her offer.  
"What if I wanted to pay for it?" she questioned.  
"Why would you want to pay?"  
"Why do you?"  
"I can more than afford a movie and dinner for two. It's not a problem."  
"I can afford it too, but I get the feeling that if I paid, I would find a random fifty in my purse."  
"Maybe," Clint laughed, "I just like buying you stuff."  
"Okay, you win."

The next day, Cara finished her painting work early and needed to kill time. It was a pretty slow day, so she decided that she would do some research that she had been wondering about. She got her laptop and went to the Google search engine. She typed in "Clint Barton" to see what would come up. No results. She tried every search engine that she could access and found nothing. She looked in virtual files of old news papers, but still…no results.  
"That's weird," she muttered, "Not even a relative on record. Heck, not even a record to put a relative on! It's like…he doesn't exist."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the reviews! I love to hear peoples opinions on my stories! **

**P.S. Sorry this chapter is shorter, but the next one should be a better size. **

* * *

Many artists make a good amount of money, for a profession. However, Cara was not one of them. Yes, she loved her art and made money of of her work, but she still had to carry a second job that she didn't much care for. She worked at a corner coffee shop most days (or at least all the days she wasn't working on a project). It was always uneventful, but now and again something odd would happen. Today the odd occurrence was a few new visitors there. Cara tried not to notice, usually, but she always had that curious part of her that wanted to sneak around and learn something. There three visitors: a college age girl with chestnut hair and glasses, a young woman with lighter, brown hair, and an older gentleman.

"I don't know, Jane," the college student said, once they had found seats, "It just seems risky to get involved in this one. Let the pros deal with this one."  
"Darcy," the older woman protested, "If there's a way to help, I'm going to! Maybe my research could be of use. This does, after all, fall under my field of astrophysics!"  
The older man made a gesture for her to keep her voice down.  
"Easy, Jane," he said calmly, "This isn't a project to be yelled to the world right now. We've got enough trouble here as is, without someone hearing about the operation."  
"Sorry, Eric," the young woman sighed.  
"Chill," the student insisted, "It's not like there's a super villain or whatever here."  
"I'm just saying that you can't be too careful. Everyone's getting restless about this. Even Barton's trail is getting sloppy."

They went on about whatever it was they were talking about, but that was pretty much all Cara needed to hear. She walked into the back of the coffee shop and over to her supervisor.  
"Hey, Jill?" she asked.  
"Yes?" answered the current manager.  
"I need to take off a little early today."  
"Sure, hon." was the half minded answer.

Cara quickly walked home and pulled out her phone. She needed to be subtle if she was going to be looking for answers to this. She scrolled through her contacts until the name "Clint Barton" came up. She dialed and waited for an answer. No answer. Second call…no answer. She finally left a message saying to call back and she sat and waited.

Meanwhile, about 30,000 feet above an ocean, the newly repaired, SHIELD Helicarrier kept watch over all possible threats. Barton followed a rather irritated (as if he's ever happy) Director Fury.  
"What word to we have on our current…"intergalactic predicament"?" Fury asked, question going to Agent Hill specifically.  
"We have no further reports, sir."  
"Has anyone else picked up on this yet?" he continued.  
"No, sir. Not even current satellites…except, of course, for Stark's."  
"Let's keep it that way. This needs to stay quiet until we know the full extent of the situation. Get a line with Stark. If he's going to figure this out anyway, we may as well tell him."  
"Yes, sir." Hill responded, as she began to leave.  
"And, Hill!" Fury continued, stopping the agent, "Tell Captain Rodgers as well. We need his boys to be ready."  
"Yes, sir." she repeated as she, successfully, left.  
"Sir," Barton cut it, as Fury looked through a file handed to him by a random agent, "Perhaps if we tapped onto the satellite grid, we could have a better understanding of who it is we're dealing with and where they are."  
"Done," Fury noted, not looking away from the file, "We've tapped into every system that can detect anything odd, but we're still sitting ducks. We don't even know what this force is yet."  
Fury turned around to face Batron, but kept his gaze down on the contents of the file.  
"Meanwhile," he started, "We have a more immediate security threat."  
"Do we have a leak?" Barton inquired.  
"Not exactly," Fury sighed, "But rather some breadcrumbs that shouldn't have been left behind. A liability, if you will."  
He handed Barton the file and used his intense, one-eyed glare. Barton opened the file to see photos run off of the internet. Photos of a picnic in Central park…the picnic he and Cara were on last week. He seemed to recall Cara taking pictures, but didn't think anything of it, since she always did.  
"Where were these found?" Barton asked.  
"Facebook," Fury replied flatly, "We live in the age of communication. That means anyone can find anything, as long as they know how to look. This, however, was embarrassingly easy to find."  
"Shouldn't be too bad of a problem. No one recognizes me," Barton defended.  
"Not now, but what do you plan to do when they do recognize you? When there's a slip up and someone knows your face?"  
"I just don't see an immediate dange-" Barton explained, but was cut off.  
"No immediate danger?!" Fury barked, "We are on the brink of another war, Barton! We can not have one of our best assets getting lazy! I can't even begin to think about the downward spiral this could cause! I want this issue fixed!"  
"How do you expect me to fix this, sir," Barton inquired, masking supreme irritation, "I fail to see how these could even be linked back to SHIELD."  
"You 'fail to see'-?! Barton!" Fury face-palmed, "If they don't link it to you, they'll link it to her. I don't want her talking!"  
"She won't," Barton sighed, "I haven't given her any valuable information. She doesn't know anything."  
"Just fix the issue."  
"You want me to have her take everything down, sir?" Barton asked, almost hesitantly.  
"Yes. Is that going to be a problem, Agent Barton?" Fury practically interrogated, placing emphasis on the word "Agent".  
"Well, sir, it's not so much a photo as a memory. She doesn't see that it's dangerous. Besides, wouldn't she be more suspicious if I had her take the photos off?" Barton protested.  
" 'Memories' can be dangerous. Fix the issue before she becomes a liability that I have to correct by other means."  
"Yes, sir." Barton sighed as he walked off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey, sorry that it took me so long to post this chapter. It's been in progress for a while. It isn't the most interesting chapter, but it's need for the rest of the story. Thanks for all the great reviews! I look forward to getting some more!**

* * *

Cara had fallen asleep on her couch, waiting for Clint to return her calls. When her phone finally rang, it not only woke her up, but it startled her so much that she rolled right off of the sofa. She scrambled to get back up on the couch and answer the call.  
"Hello!" she said eagerly, expecting it to be Clint.  
"Hi, Cara," her friend Jamie's voice chimed.  
"Hi! Yeah! Great to hear from you! How've you been! Expecting a very important call, so I can't talk now. Bye!" Cara rushed.  
"Cara!" Jamie protested, "You didn't even ask why I was calling."  
"Really important phone call!" Cara restated.  
"Waiting for Clint to call back?" Jamie asked flatly, already knowing the answer.  
"Yeah," Cara said, "Maybe."  
"We need to talk. I'm coming over."  
Before Cara could respond, Jamie had ended the call. Cara knew that there wasn't really anything she could do about Jamie coming over. If Jamie made up her mind…it stayed made up. Cara sighed and was once again startled by her phone going off. She answered the call and made a mental note to change the ringer volume on her phone.  
"Hello," she answered, in no special way.  
"Hi, Cara," was the response, again.  
This time, however, it was actually Clint's voice.  
"Hi," Cara said, happier than before.  
"You called earlier?" he more stated than asked.  
"Yeah," Cara said, "I was wondering if you were free…like now."  
"I am."  
"Good! You wanna go get ice cream?" Cara asked cheerily.  
"Ice Cream?" Clint echoed.  
"Yeah, it's a frozen, dairy dessert that is adored by…almost everyone."  
"I'm aware what Ice cream is," Clint laughed, "I was just wondering why ice cream. We never go get ice cream…"  
"Well, we're going today! I just wanted to try something new!" Cara insisted.  
"Okay. I'll come pick you up," Clint said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.

Cara sat and waited nervously. Her thoughts always tended to get the best of her in unknown situations. Her overactive imagination was giving her all these dangerous scenarios.  
"What if he's like an international fugitive or something? Or working for a crime lord? Or…" her thoughts ranted on and on. The people at the café had used the name Barton, so she had to find out how they knew him. Her terrified thoughts were abruptly ended by Jamie throwing the downstairs door open and running upstairs.  
"This is an intervention!" Jamie exclaimed, coming up to sit across from Cara.  
"For what?! I haven't done anything illegal!" Cara panicked.  
"You seem a little jumpy…" Jamie noted.  
"I am not jumpy," Cara said, calming down.  
"Good, because this is about Barton."

That was all Cara needed to hear…Barton. Everyone always asks about Barton.  
"I can't talk about him, because it has recently come to my attention that I don't know who he is!" Cara explained, in a rather loud and irritated manner.  
She heard a car outside and figured that it was Clint, so she ran, slid down the old fire-pole, and bolted to the front door.  
"Okay…good talk," Jamie said, rather confused, as Cara left.

About ten minutes later, Cara was at a nearby ice cream shop, shoveling any chocolate flavor they had into her mouth. Clint just sat across from her silently.  
"Babe…" he asked, quietly.  
"Huh?" Cara muffled through a mouth full of ice cream.  
"Are you doing okay?" he continued, "You seem a little…stressed."  
"A little? Yeah, I am a little stressed," Cara replied, putting great emphasis on the word 'stressed'.  
"I saw some friends of yours at work earlier today," Cara said, casually.  
"Did you?" Clint replied, mentally compiling a list of every hero, agent, and person of interest that he'd ever worked with or for.  
"Yeah I think their names were…uh.." Cara tried to recall, from their conversation, what the strangers' names were, "Eric and Jane."  
Barton mentally panicked and wondered how bad the damage was, but was far too experienced in this to show any sign of worry.  
"I'm gonna have to clean this one up," He thought to himself.  
"They were talking about you and about some project they were working on," Cara continued, interrupting his thoughts about a furious SHIELD director.  
"I don't know a Jane or an Eric," Barton said calmly.  
"Funny," Cara said with a fake chuckle, "Because they know a Barton, but there's no record of the name Barton…anywhere!"  
"Small family," Clint shrugged.  
"Do you even have family?!" Cara practically interrogated.  
"What brought all this up?" Clint asked, turning this back on Cara.  
"You have no records anywhere, you have never told me about any family, any job, any house! There's no proof that you exist! Even the pictures of mine, with you in them, disappeared from Facebook and my computer hard-drive!" Cara ranted.  
"You do have solid proof that I exist," Barton said, still as calm and collected as always.  
"What?" Cara sighed.  
Barton stood from his chair and moved over to kneel next to Cara's. He tilted her chin toward him and kissed her.  
"Need more proof or do you still think you're imagining me?" he laughed.  
"Okay, I never said you were not really here," Cara stated, "I just don't know who you are."  
"Cara, think about this," Clint sighed, "You know who I am. I told you that. Why are you so paranoid about this? Let it go."  
"What about the people that know you? The top secret project? The fact that everyone I know seems to be suspicious of you!?"  
"Are you gonna let this go?" Clint sighed.  
"No. No, I am not! I'm not going to stop until you tell me who you really are or I find out myself!" Cara stated.  
"I really wish you hadn't said that," Clint sighed, still knelt next to her chair, "Because you can't know."  
Every spy, secret agent, and conspiracy movie came flooding back to Cara.  
"Am I going to die now?" She asked plainly.  
"Wha-No!" Clint laughed, "I am not about to kill my girlfriend."  
He stood, pulled a small device out of his pocket, and held it up. It emitted a subtle grey smoke and Cara quickly lost consciousness.  
"You just have to disappear before someone else does," Barton finished, looking around.


	4. Chapter 4

**I LOVE Comments! So PLEASE review and let me know what you think! Pretty Please! **

**~Mischief's Angel**

* * *

When Cara slowly woke back up, all she could heard were muffled voices. She slowly opened her eyes, but closed them after finding how painful the light was. Her mind was still a little groggy and she was remarkably confused. She blinked a few times and looked around. She was in, what looked like, a mediocre hotel room. She sat up, from her spot laying on the bed, and the memory of the ice cream shop flooded back into her head.  
"Morning," said a familiar voice.  
She jumped slightly and then noticed that Clint was sitting next to the bed. Cara turned her head toward him and narrowed her eyes at him.  
"You…" she said, in a rather hostile tone.  
"Hi, PoohBear," he said, as sweetly as he could.  
"Don't you even," Cara said, still in the hostile tone.  
"You're probably hungry, confused, and wondering where you are. Right?" Clint sighed.  
"Pretty much!"  
"Well, you're hungry because you were out for about…three days," Clint explained, like this was totally normal, "The I can't help with the confusion and I'm not permitted to tell you where you are. All this aside, I really wish you would have dropped the suspicion."  
"I knew it, I'm going to die," Cara squeaked.  
Clint just laughed and shook his head.  
"You are not going to die!" he said, "I already told you that. I just had to make sure that you didn't go around shouting something about this 'top secret' project you think you stumbled on."  
"So, where am I?" Cara asked, desperately trying to calm down.  
"I still can't tell you, but I promise that you're safe…for the time being."  
"Well…when can I go home?" she asked, hugging her knees to her chin.  
"That's the problem…" he sighed, "You can't."  
"That means I was right! Doesn't it!" Cara exclaimed, "There is a top secret project thingy! And you…you're…okay, I haven't figured that out yet."  
Clint tried to think of a response, but every response he considered would have lead to SHIELD.  
"Alright…" he began, "Umm…do you remember all those secret agent movies that I took you to?"  
"Yeah…" Cara said hesitantly.  
"Well…this is kinda like that," he continued, "You know whenever someone finds something out about the secret agent? And it gets the agent in a lot of trouble, because then people close to him are in danger?"  
Cara just nodded nervously.  
"That's why you have to stay here. You overheard stuff that makes it dangerous for you to go home. When we fix the problem, I should be able to send you home. Okay?" Clint said calmly.  
"So…I am going to die then?" Cara said, starting to panic again.  
"You are not gonna die!" Clint insisted, smacking the palm of his hand to his forehead, "The reason I didn't tell you about me, was because, officially, I don't exist. There's nothing to tell. My job makes it dangerous for me to leave a trail, so I'm generally invisible. Simple as that."  
"Are you working for some kind of dangerous crime lord or something?!" Cara practically interrogated.  
Clint just sighed and thought of how he could best explain this.  
"I'm one of the good guys, and I'm protecting my girlfriend from the bad guys that wanna know the good guys' secrets," he stated, "Easy enough?"

Cara stood up and walked around the room. She paced back and fourth before noticing a window. She eagerly walked up to the window, wanting to look outside and get a better idea of where she was. She pulled back the curtain to find that the window was nothing more than a lighted panel that simulated a blanked-out window. She just stared at the panel for a while and then turned back around.  
"Are you gonna be okay?" Clint asked quietly.  
Cara walked back to the bed and face-planted into the mattress. After a few minutes of her not answering, Clint turned and walked out. On the reverse side of the quaint, little hotel room door was a metal lined corridor of SHIELD's hover-based headquarters. There were two agents stationed outside the door to ensure that only Barton could go into that room and that no one else came out.

While walking down the hall (deliberately watching for any signs of Fury, so as to avoid him), Agent Hill walked up behind Barton.  
"I hope you realize that this isn't a hotel, Barton," she said blankly.  
"I do," Barton replied.  
"Then how exactly do you expect me to explain this one to Fury."  
"I don't expect you to explain it, Hill. I'm going to," Barton sighed, "Fury had his third cup of coffee yet?"  
"That's not going to help your case here," Hill stated, "She's civilian. She can't stay here."  
"I'll figure it out," Barton shrugged.  
"So, I take it you have a plan," Hill inquired.  
"Do I ever?"  
"You realize that you're setting a pretty extreme fire here? A fire that I'm going to have to put out!"  
"I understand that," Barton said plainly, before completely disappearing down an adjacent hallway.  
"I hate it when he does that!" Hill exclaimed to herself, before proceeding to wherever she was originally going.

Fury was currently monitoring the SHIELD lab, waiting for any word on their upcoming issue. Barton silently entered the lab, hoping to avoid being heard.  
"Barton," Fury said, still faced away from Barton's direction, "Just who I wanted to talk to."  
Clint sighed quietly, but said nothing.  
"Not only have you breached the safety protocol this week," Fury started, "But you didn't solve the issue and you brought a suspicious civilian back to SHIELD. Are you trying to get discharged?!"  
"I was trying to solve the original issue, without the use of force…" Barton attempted, as an excuse.  
Fury turned toward him and stared him down with his famous one eyed glare.  
"Hawkeye has always been one of my best men," Fury continued, putting an almost sarcastic emphasis on the codename, "Would you care to explain to me why he has suddenly become a dangerous problem to have?"  
"Director," Dr. Banner cut in, walking slightly away from the lab table that Fury and Barton almost forgot he was working at, "If I may, this is the safest place to be for the time being. Is it so terrible that Agent Barton is trying to protect someone by temporarily having them here?"  
"As a matter of fact, Doctor, yes. It is," Fury sighed.  
"What would you suggest I do, sir?" Barton grumbled.  
"Never get involved with a civilian in the first place, and your girlfriend wouldn't be stuck in SHIELD's web, Barton!"  
"Or you could tell her the truth," Banner suggested calmly.  
"Out of the question!" Fury exclaimed.  
"Clint," Banner continued, ignoring Fury's protest, "When you brought her here, you said that she'd already overheard Selvig talking about the issue at SHIELD. If so, she's not the problem. She couldn't help that."  
"Are you suggesting that this isn't a problem?" Barton asked.  
"Well…yes," Banner stated, "Thanos is mad, and he's coming whether we like it or not. I don't see how overhearing something about it is your girl's fault. Sure, she's suspicious, but a lot of people are. If the fighting makes it to Earth, everyone will find out what's going on. Isn't it better that you tell her, before she finds out the hard way? If she cares about you as much as you care about her, she'll keep the information safe."  
"Doc," Barton said, "Remind me to come to you first next time something like this happens!"


	5. Chapter 5

Hey, sorry that I haven't updated in forever! I got caught up in a mess of new projects and this one got pushed back. Anyway, here's the new chapter. Please Read and Review! Thanks!

~Mischief's Angel

* * *

The next three hours consisted of nervous pacing though various corridors.

"Hawkeye's never had a problem like this," Barton mumbled to himself, "Maybe because he's not real. This job's supposed to be straight forward: handle problems for SHIELD. Any problems. And now there is a problem…and I have no idea how to handle it. Great. That's just great."  
"You always did talk to yourself too much when you were upset," came a familiar voice from behind him.  
"Nat, can we not talk about this now?" he sighed.  
"I don't see how I can let it go. I haven't seen fury this upset since Loki turned his car into ice cream," Natasha pointed out.  
Clint laughed slightly at the memory of Fury's face while his car was melting in the street.  
"Yeah, that was pretty bad," he admitted.  
"Have you told her yet?"  
"Wait, How did you know I was gonna tell…" Barton started, "Bruce tell you?"  
"Oh, yeah."  
"No. No, I haven't told her. I was going to though."  
"When? After your pacing wore through the floor?" she laughed.  
"Go. Now." she continued as Barton tried to talk, "Don't think about it. Go."  
She shoved him the end of the hallway and through a door.  
"Oh, and make it fast. Briefing on the next mission starts in ten minutes," she said as the dorr slid closed.  
"Wait, what?! Ten minutes isn't…." he attempted through the closed door.

When he reached the door of the room where Cara was most likely freaking out, he took a deep breath and went straight in. To his surprise, she was actually very calm. She was just sitting on the bed of the little room.  
"Hey," he said, casually trying to get her attention.  
"Give me an explanation or get out," she said calmly, staring at the fake window.  
"I get the feeling your still upse-"  
"Clint!"  
"Right. Explanation. Umm…you know all those 'Superheroes' that you say are just a government publicity stunt?"  
"Yeah…"  
"Well, they're not. The only reason they hide behind masks is because it can be really dangerous for people they care about if everyone in the world knew who w-they….they were."  
"Please, tell me you're not a delusional maniac that thinks he's a super-powered freak…"  
"You can be a hero without the superpowers! Just saying!" he replied defensively, "And no. I'm a multi-national, government ordered, non super-powered assassin….whom you've been dating for like eight months."  
"That's not better, Clint," she choked out nervously.  
"Ye-ah…it sounded better in my head," he said.  
After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Clint sat down next to Cara and put his arm around her shoulders.  
"Are you gonna be okay?" he asked softly.  
"That depends. Is there anything else you're not telling me?"  
"I don't really work at a sports complex," he stated plainly.  
"And?"  
"I'm not really from Chicago."  
"And?"  
"I'm Hawkeye, from the Avengers."  
"And-WHAT?!"  
"I'm gonna leave you with that though, because I gotta go. Back soon!" Clint said quickly as he hurried to the door. He walked out and closed the door, ignoring Cara screaming at him.

Cara paced back and fourth across the floor for a good hour after that. Clint only knew that because he was sitting on the opposite side of the door. He leaned back against the door and sighed.

"What a mess!" he grumbled.

When the pacing finally stopped he stood up and faced the door. He opened the door slightly.

"Sweetheart…" he said, testing how safe it was to actually open the door.

"BARTON!" came the shrieked reply, as a chair hit the door.

Clint jumped back and resealed the door.

"Okay, so let me know when you don't want to tear my head off."

Another few hours later, Clint still sat outside the door: this time, with a pizza box. He took a bite of his fifth piece of pizza before Dr. Banner almost tripped over him. He had been focused on a report from some recent project.

"Hey," Clint sighed, after Banner successfully regained his footing.

"Why are you-"

"I told her the truth," Clint answered.

"Ah, I see," Bruce sighed, "She still probably took it better than she would have had someone else told her."

"I'm really doubting that," Clint admitted, "I'd have preferred in if she would have thrown the chair at someone else's head."

"Ouch…"

"Yeah, I know," said Clint, offering up a slice of pizza.

"Maybe I could talk to her," Bruce suggested before sitting down and taking a slice of pizza. Clint let out a loud sarcastic laugh, before his face went blank.

"It couldn't hurt!" Bruce said, defending his idea.

"Yes….yes it could."

Awkward silence.

"Just one thing…" Clint muttered to himself.

"What was that?" Bruce asked.

"I just wanted one normal thing," Clint started, "Just one ordinary thing in my life. That's it. I finally had something that wasn't dangerous. One thing that I really cared about. I had it. And now…she hates me!"

"It could be worse," Bruce sighed, "At least her father doesn't want to kill you, like my girlfriend's does."

He laughed at his attempt at a joke. He was trying to lighten the mood. Clint didn't laugh. He just sat there.

"Let's face it. You've been at this longer than any of us. You knew the risks that would have and the sacrifices that you'd have to make," Bruce sighed, "No one ever promised us this would be easy. Fury said the opposite. But you do it. Why?"

"Because no matter how hard it is to do my job, the consequences of me not doing it are much worse," Clint answered.

"No matter how hard it is to get through this with her, the consequences of not doing it are much worse."

"I hate it when you do that, Doc!" Clint said blatantly.

"Go back and work this out. I'll come with you for…uh….support I guess," Bruce laughed.

"Why?"

"Because that's how a team works."


End file.
